josh8loop
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2009
- Location
- Vero Beach, Fl.
- TDI
- 2002 VW Jetta TDI Manual(performed 01M to 5-speed swap) - 183,000 miles and climbing!
Fellas,
Just had this happen tonight after backing into a parking space at work. First time this has happened. Put it into reverse to back into the parking spot, backed in and pushed in on the clutch(which felt normal) and couldn't get it into neutral. I ended up shutting the car off, popped the hood and tried to actuate the shift tower which didn't move like it normally would. I eventually got into the car and with a little force/coersion it went into neutral. After I got it into neutral, I ran it back and forth through the gears, and all seemed normal again. I will post a little more about the history/past problems I've encountered with this gearbox and my troubleshooting so far.....
I have a 02J that has about 110K miles on. It was swapped in my car about a year ago. When I first got it, I put LubroMoly in it for the gear oil. After some talk with a few other guys on gear oil selection it came to light that the LubroMoly oil may not be suitable for the brass synchros in the transmission. I figured I didn't want to throw away that oil and waste the money and I would soon change it to the G070 VW oil. During that year with the LubroMoly in it Getting into gear in 1st and second was never easy from the beginning, and getting progressively more difficult especially when moving. I realigned the shifter mechanism 3 different times to make sure the alignment was spot on and to see if that would help. It didn't do anything for me. So fast forward, I flushed the gear box and added the G070 oil to it. The shifts got ever so slightly better but it is still difficult getting into first when stopped or rolling, difficult going straight to 2nd when rolling, and seems to be getting worse. I have also relubricated the sliding surfaces on the shift parts and it made a very slight difference. Another forum member has driven my car, and made a comment on how light the clutch was. It is a G60 VR6 SMF kit.
In an effort to tighten shift mechanism components that seem to be problematic, I ended up removing my pinned gear shift cable from the shift tower cleaned it really well, a filled all the gaps in with UltraGrey RTV. The rubber was extremely spongy, and filling the gaps with the RTV really solidified things-I essentially now have a solid shift cable end that goes to the hockey stick/shift tower. The other shift cable end that controls the up/dpwn shift tower movement is a ball-end type. I also removed the nylon bushings at various places and put a wrap or two of teflon tape on the outside of the bushings and slid the bushings back into place. This helped tighten the clearance up quite a bit, and helped shift quality slightly. I notice that I have cable end deflection and to resolve that I used some creative methods to secure the shift cable ends that allow for a more secure attachment with reduced cable end deflection.
I basically have started a systematic approach in getting my shift issue resolved. I started off on the wrong foot early in my transmission swap since my shift cables were an inch and a half too short - they were actually 6-speed shift cables/shift box and I learned afterwords that the 6-speed shift cables are slightly shorter than the 5-speed cables. I finally got a used shift box, and the proper length 5-speed cables. I installed the 5-speed cables, and kept the 6-speed shift box since it was in better shape(less slop) than my used 5-speed box. Is there any difference between the 6-speed shift box, and the 5-speed shift box? Any help on this would be immensly appreciated! If this keeps going in this direction I will have a non function TDI and soon
..
Just had this happen tonight after backing into a parking space at work. First time this has happened. Put it into reverse to back into the parking spot, backed in and pushed in on the clutch(which felt normal) and couldn't get it into neutral. I ended up shutting the car off, popped the hood and tried to actuate the shift tower which didn't move like it normally would. I eventually got into the car and with a little force/coersion it went into neutral. After I got it into neutral, I ran it back and forth through the gears, and all seemed normal again. I will post a little more about the history/past problems I've encountered with this gearbox and my troubleshooting so far.....
I have a 02J that has about 110K miles on. It was swapped in my car about a year ago. When I first got it, I put LubroMoly in it for the gear oil. After some talk with a few other guys on gear oil selection it came to light that the LubroMoly oil may not be suitable for the brass synchros in the transmission. I figured I didn't want to throw away that oil and waste the money and I would soon change it to the G070 VW oil. During that year with the LubroMoly in it Getting into gear in 1st and second was never easy from the beginning, and getting progressively more difficult especially when moving. I realigned the shifter mechanism 3 different times to make sure the alignment was spot on and to see if that would help. It didn't do anything for me. So fast forward, I flushed the gear box and added the G070 oil to it. The shifts got ever so slightly better but it is still difficult getting into first when stopped or rolling, difficult going straight to 2nd when rolling, and seems to be getting worse. I have also relubricated the sliding surfaces on the shift parts and it made a very slight difference. Another forum member has driven my car, and made a comment on how light the clutch was. It is a G60 VR6 SMF kit.
In an effort to tighten shift mechanism components that seem to be problematic, I ended up removing my pinned gear shift cable from the shift tower cleaned it really well, a filled all the gaps in with UltraGrey RTV. The rubber was extremely spongy, and filling the gaps with the RTV really solidified things-I essentially now have a solid shift cable end that goes to the hockey stick/shift tower. The other shift cable end that controls the up/dpwn shift tower movement is a ball-end type. I also removed the nylon bushings at various places and put a wrap or two of teflon tape on the outside of the bushings and slid the bushings back into place. This helped tighten the clearance up quite a bit, and helped shift quality slightly. I notice that I have cable end deflection and to resolve that I used some creative methods to secure the shift cable ends that allow for a more secure attachment with reduced cable end deflection.
I basically have started a systematic approach in getting my shift issue resolved. I started off on the wrong foot early in my transmission swap since my shift cables were an inch and a half too short - they were actually 6-speed shift cables/shift box and I learned afterwords that the 6-speed shift cables are slightly shorter than the 5-speed cables. I finally got a used shift box, and the proper length 5-speed cables. I installed the 5-speed cables, and kept the 6-speed shift box since it was in better shape(less slop) than my used 5-speed box. Is there any difference between the 6-speed shift box, and the 5-speed shift box? Any help on this would be immensly appreciated! If this keeps going in this direction I will have a non function TDI and soon
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